Because New Year’s Day fell on a Saturday this year, work gave us Monday off. I didn’t realise this until about 9:30 this morning, when I started getting status replies when I messaged co-workers, saying there was a company holiday.
Excited by the extra day of freedom (school was also cancelled, but coincidentally, rather than as a compensatory day off) my wife and I thought to drive over to Port Townsend. But then I remembered I still had a physio appointment today (that I’d confirmed yesterday) and the roads were icy, the weather still bleak, so we went to the library and then to a park in Ravenna this afternoon. That was the smart choice. We had things to deal with in the Airbnb like an incursion of ants, and trying to figure out how to make meals when there’s only a hotplate and a microwave, and I needed to tend to my retainers, rather than had about the countryside and get to take them out willy-nilly. I wonder if my concerns with teeth alignment will persist to the end of this process.
We went past a house in Ravenna that we tried to buy when we first moved to Seattle; it was listed at $100k more than the one we eventually bought, and I think it went for $150k over the asking price. So for a quarter million more we could have had a much smaller house, riddled with asbestos, old wiring and a nasty basement – I think we made the right choice, but it was nice to be reassured.
The snow has almost all gone, as quickly as it arrived. There’s slush and a lot of ice here, but things are returning to some sort of normal.
And tomorrow it really is normal, or at least it’s school for the kids and work for me again. Onwards!